Our Fitness Blog

Five Tips to Holding a Longer Plank

Planks can be a difficult exercise to perform. It does not take long for your body to feel the burn; however, this burn tells us that it is effectively working out our bodies. It is a perfect way to tone your arms and strengthen your core. In order to get the best results you need to try to hold your plank for as long as you can. Most of us like to try to hold our planks for thirty seconds or a minute, but if we do not watch the clock and take away these time limits, we may find that we can actually plank much longer than we ever thought we could. Here are just a few tips to help you get started on a holding a longer plank.

A plank a day. Try to work planking into every one of your daily fitness routines. Each day you perform this exercise the easier it will seem. It is just like with everything else, practice makes perfect.

Don't watch the clock. Turn away from the clock or turn over your stopwatch. You will still be able to time yourself, but you will not be able to see how long you have been holding your plank until you can no longer hold it. This will put an end to you having a preset length of time to hold your plank and make you focus on how long you can actually hold your plank.

Distract yourself. When you are focusing too much on how long to hold your plank, you tend to make it harder to plank. However, if you distract yourself you may not notice how long you have been holding your plank. You could read a magazine article or listen to music. Anything that will keep your mind off of how long you have been holding your plank would be perfect to try.

Push your limits. When you start feeling as if you can't go any longer, push yourself to go ten more seconds. Each day try to push yourself to hold your plank a few seconds longer. You may not add on to your plank everyday, but as long as you keep seeing progress over time then you have something to be proud of.

Do not lose your form. You have to stay focused on your form, especially if you are new to planking. This is where we get all those great results. You do not want to waste all your time and energy on incorrectly performing a plank. This may lead to less than stellar results and maybe even an injury. A neutral neck is important (not chin down or chin up). Keep your body in a perfectly straight line (don’t allow your hips to go up or sag down) Suck your stomach muscles in tight (like your at the beach in a bikini and someone hot just walked by!) All these techniques are necessary as one unit in order to have good plank form.

Planks work your entire body. It can help you tone and tighten many problem areas. However, it can seem hard for many of us to correctly perform this exercise, but the benefits we can get from this exercise makes it all worth it. So, get out there and challenge yourself to hold the longest plank ever.